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He survived Auschwitz, ran a confectionery business, and recently took over as the world's oldest man, per Guinness World Records. On Friday, Yisrael Kristal died in Haifa, Israel, at age 113, just one month shy of his 114th birthday, the BBC reports. Kristal, who was born in Poland, lost his parents shortly before and during World War I and went on to work in the family's candymaking business. When the Nazis invaded Poland, his family was forced into the Lodz ghetto, where his two children died; he and his wife were then moved to Auschwitz, where she died. Per Tablet magazine, when Soviet soldiers liberated him, where he was working as a forced laborer, he showed his gratitude by making them sweets.

Kristal eventually remarried and had two more children, and he and his family moved to Israel in 1950. He became somewhat of a celebrity in Haifa last year when he decided, 100 years after when most people do so, to celebrate his bar mitzvah. When Kristal was told last year he was being bestowed with the world's oldest man title, he reportedly told Haaretz, "I couldn't care less." Despite the ordeals he'd lived through over the years, he told the paper that "the world is worse than in the past," lamenting modern-day "permissiveness," lack of work ethic in today's "cheeky" young people, and the fact that everything is now "high tech." "Today, children decide everything," he said. "Once upon a time, parents had the last word."

RIP Mr K. He was right about today's world. If I had been in Auschwitz I would have chopped the arms & legs off of every guard I would find after the russians liberated the camp. Then pack them in dry ice making sure they lived a long time w/out arms or legs. Then again I'd do the same thing for any Mossad agent I'd find.

EdCoulterStableGenius

Aug 12, 2017 4:53 AM CDT

Sooo, who is the oldest man now? I don't blame him for telling them he didn't care. It isn't something anyone will brag about for very long. I guess this means no one alive now has lived in 3 centuries, or is there some woman still alive born in the 1890's?